Left 4 Dead: The War Goes On
by Themistocles490
Summary: After the events of The Sacrifice, Zoey, Francis and Louis mourn, and prepare to move on. What they don't expect is for someone else to enter the scene; an individual capable of not only filling the empty space in their roster, but perhaps bringing them to safety once and for all.
1. Lone Wolf

****Hello all. This is not my first FanFic, although this is the first one I've published. Please review, I'm open to any and all criticism. Be warned though, the more offensive you are, the more amused I'll be. **

**Anyway, this story follows an OC as he encounters the original L4D survivors shortly after Bill's death in Rayford, Georgia. I will continue this as long as possible, but please be aware that I've got some serious ADD when it comes to fiction, and I could completely lose interest in a month, only to pick it up again 4 months from now. I may however stretch it if there's enough call for it out there, so make your voices heard.  
**

"Rafe, you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" Rafe simply grumbled in reply. "I thought so."

John 'BlackJack' Aubrey peered through the scope of his M110 sniper rifle, settling the crosshairs on his target. He checked the wind one last time, and slowly reached up to make a minute adjustment to the knob on the side of the scope. The pale teenage girl on the unfriendly end of his rifle continued to cry, curled up on the ground. As he and his companion had agreed, as soon as Aubrey made the shot, they'd proceed into the farm to eliminate the remaining inhabitants at close range. There was no mercy in his heart, though somewhere at the back there was perhaps a little bit of pity.

He let out a slow breath, and at the moment his lungs were empty, between heartbeats, he twitched his finger. The custom 7.62 millimeter, fin-stabilized, Saboted Light Armor Piercing explosive round left the barrel at 4000 feet per second, passing through the suppressor on the tip and losing most of its sound. It exited the end of the suppressor, discarded the plastic sabot, deployed its tail fins and emitted a small sonic boom as it hurtled towards its target.

In the doorway of a sizeable farmhouse 1300 meters away, the sobbing witch was literally hurtled backwards into the house by the force of the impact. A fraction of a second later, in midair, her head exploded. The corpse slid across the floor, leaving a massive trail of congealed blood behind her. A few of her more mundane companions stared blankly at her body as it slid past, finally coming to a stop in a heap against the wall. The heavy rounds were the only ones he trusted to reliably take out the creatures in one shot.

"Zeke on the ground." Aubrey muttered. He then settled in for a wait. Even suppressed, the gunshot did make a sound, and he had to make sure that the rest of the zombies settled down before exposing himself. So he remained under his ghillie blanket, watching. While he waited, he made a few notations in his notebook, recording the bullet's performance. Since he had to mold and load his own ammunition, he had to keep careful track of how well he was doing. With assault rifle or pistol bullets, it wasn't a big deal; he was an experienced gunsmith. But his sniper bullets were match grade, and he worked hard to keep them that way.

He pressed a button on his collar. "Continuing log, oh-seven thirty-two hours. Eliminated a Gatekeeper-class hostile at range, single shot to the head. No apparent response to my presence, again confirming that Zeke is reliant on its human senses." Aubrey also kept detailed records of his travels, for three reasons. One, if-when he made it to the safe zone, he'd probably get a commendation on the intelligence benefits alone. Two, he wanted a record of his travels for his own use. Despite the grim nature of the situation, this was an adventure, and he wanted to have details. And three, if he was killed (or worse), someone else might benefit from his collected knowledge. And that was his ultimate goal: to be as much benefit to as many people as possible. "I spot no other Myrmidons in the area, but that's no guarantee. The fuckers like to hide. I'll give 'em a couple more minutes to settle down before I make my final assault."

There were 30 or 40 zombies wandering aimlessly through the fog around the farmhouse. From what he could see through the windows, there were maybe another 10 in the house. Throw in a couple of special surprises, and he could expect to use only two magazines of ammunition. He carried 12 for his assault rifle, so that was okay. He double checked his motion tracker, which didn't register anything within 20 meters.

Aubrey raised one arm, drawing the blanket off him. "Alright boy, let's get cocked, locked and ready to rock."

The three year old German Shepherd barked happily in response and shook himself free. Aubrey picked up his sniper rifle, collapsing the bipod and slipping the sling over his head. He rolled up the mat they'd been laying on inside the blanket and tied it to his pack. He then buried the pack under a pile of dead sticks and leaves. Rafe sat patiently waiting, constantly sniffing the air for approaching zombies.

When their supplies were hidden, they set off together at a fast trot. Aubrey slung his sniper behind his back, swapping it for his compact assault rifle, which he strapped across his chest for an easy fast-grab. Besides that, he carried two primary sidearms and a holdout pistol. And on an outing like this, pretty much all he carried was ammo, so he could easily shoot and kill 600 zombies. And when he finally ran out, he had a spring-loaded folding Katana on his back, and blades don't need reloading. Plus it was really fun to use.

The first zombie didn't even notice Aubrey's quiet steps through the dewy grass. He raised his arms and smashed the butt of his rifle into its head, dropping it without even slowing down. Rafe barreled into the next one, knocking it to the ground. John drew his Glock and put a round into its head. That made them take notice. He'd started upwind, so they couldn't smell the pair, but the gunshot was a dead giveaway. The shambling walkers perked up, searching around with hungry grunting sounds as they tried to find out what was making the noise. Then they zeroed in on him.

Seemingly all at once, 30 sets of eyes snapped to Aubrey with an almost gleeful gleam. Rather than fear however, Aubrey returned it. He was known by his comrades as being unusually philosophical, but even _he_ loved killing zombies. As the lot of them often said: "We're in the business of kicking ass, and business is good."

Aubrey shot the nearest four in quick succession with his Glock, before the last one could do more than turn fully to face him. Then they started sprinting to him. He holstered the pistol and raised his rifle. He focused his sight picture on the nearest one again. Time seemed to slow down as training and instinct took over, and despite how erratic the zombie was being, he subconsciously swayed his rifle to match its movements and keep its rotted face in his sights.

He pulled the trigger and felt the rifle kick back into his shoulder. An explosion of blood filled the sights for a moment, then the head disappeared. He tracked to the left and continued. All of this happened in less than a second. One after another, figures dropped as Aubrey sent carefully guided bullets into their heads. He'd seen dozens of soldiers lose all semblance of fire discipline as the hordes approached. As far as he was concerned though, he had all the time in the world. If he was smart.

"Rafe, take 'em for a walk!" he shouted. Rafe barked once to confirm, then started barking wildly at the zombies, leading them off to the left. Roughly half of them began to follow the dog, hoping to catch a small meal. He was far faster than any zombie could ever hope to be, and he led them around the side of the house. The rest continued to fall to Kenway's rifle.

_*Cough*Cough*_

He dropped instantly onto his back. His rifle landed between his legs and he continued firing at the approaching undead. A long reddish-black object shot over him, grasping at the space he'd just occupied. Instead it stuck to the ground to his right. Aubrey reached up and grabbed it with his gloved hands and yanked. On top of the farmhouse, the Smoker yelped as it lurched forward headfirst, falling off the roof. Aubrey smirked.

The undead numbers after him were down to less than 10. He rolled backwards and returned to his feet, weapon at the ready. The rifle bucked slightly as he let off two more rounds, dropping the closest pair. With a little breathing room, he redirected his aim to the Smoker, who was struggling to get up. He let off a five-round burst, putting the ex-human out of its misery.

Two zombies smashed into the doorframe, both struggling to get out of the farmhouse at the same time. They were too stupid to fight each other, just struggling to get at him with twisted arms outstretched. A third from the upper floor jumped out the window and followed the shards to the ground. Aubrey heard both its legs snap. That didn't stop it from getting up and trying to sprint at him anyway. He put paid to that theory with a 5.56 millimeter hollow point bullet.

Aubrey looked at the remaining zombies and calmly inserted a new magazine into his rifle. The mostly empty one he placed back into his vest. "Necrotic cockbites." he muttered.

A few shots later, the last of his group of zombies was down. "Rafe, bring 'em here!" he shouted. He heard a faint bark in reply. When Rafe led his share of the horde around the corner again, Aubrey proceeded to put them down just as efficiently.

The field was strangely quiet then, the early morning fog lending an eerie air to the sight of bodies lying in the grass. He shook his head sadly. He hated dealing with hordes. It reminded him too much of the chaotic days of the Great Panic. He'd been lucky to live through it, but that was the first time in his adult life he'd been truly scared. He'd always known that fighting aboard ships was crazy, but…

Rafe trotted up to Aubrey, tongue lolling out, tail wagging happily, clearly expecting praise. Aubrey knelt down and began rubbing his head, delivering as expected. He murmured a few praising words.

"Think it's time to get in there?" he asked, nodding his head at the house. Rafe growled in response. "Yeah, I really don't want to either. But it's gotta be done."

Aubrey knelt in the doorway and peered down the hall with his weapon. The broad streak of blood across the floor was starting to congeal. The Witch was still laying slumped against the back wall. Cutting the hall in half, the stairs led up and around to the left. Doors to either side led to the rest of the house. A third led directly to the kitchen at the back, and a closed door under the stairs led to the basement. Aubrey definitely didn't want to go down there. Farmhouses always had creepy basements, and the streaks of blood on the white walls leading to the door in question wasn't encouraging.

He swept his rifle left and right slowly, every sense listening for the infected. Up above, he heard creaking footsteps. _Main floor, upstairs, then seal and basement_, he decided after a moment's consideration. Rafe perked his ears up and made a whining sound.

"Yeah, I hear it too." Aubrey muttered. "Porker."

He proceeded to clear the house, one room at a time, the main floor first. His silent steps offered no warning to any of the infected. What he assumed to be the farmer, an elderly fellow, was sitting in a large armchair in the living room. It was still seated, but was moaning more loudly than usual. It was agitated from the fight outside. Aubrey managed to walk right up next to it without making a sound. It looked up as he pressed the suppressor of his rifle right against its forehead. Only a small _spit_, and a wet splatter was heard as he pulled the trigger.

Rafe emitted a small whining sound; not enough to carry, but enough to let Aubrey know that something was up. Aubrey crouched low and aimed at the door he'd just come through. To his left, the door to the back kitchen was open about an inch. He'd see it move before anything came through. In the hall, he heard a low growling noise. Hunter. They were dangerous fuckers, especially if they got you from behind. He'd seen it happen to more than one man. But if you managed to keep them in front of you, they were no real problem, as long as you knew what you were doing.

The Hunter leapt through the hall into the doorway, turned on a dime, and, with a shriek, executed a jump that would have landed it right on Aubrey. Most people fell back in fear when a Hunter jumped them. Aubrey leapt forward to meet the Hunter. As they contacted, he sidestepped to the right and thrust out his right hand holding the grip of his rifle, smashing the stock into the side of its head. It flew past the dead farmer and hit the dining room table. Rafe pounced instantly, his titanium-tipped teeth on the creatures throat, digging in and tearing.

The noise drew the rest of the zombies in the house. He could hear them, the noise coming from both doors. The low growling of their semi-agitated state was gone. In its place was the sniffing, snarling, and teeth-snapping sound of Zeke with the scent of blood on the air, and the sounds of food in their ears. The moment they'd heard the noise of the Hunter's death, all their sense perked up and they suddenly registered the presence of something new. Something tasty.

Rafe looked up from his kill, blood dripping from his teeth. This time he uttered a low growl of his own. Footsteps could be heard from above, quickening as the scent of the visitors solidified into an olfactory dinner bell. Aubrey smirked.

"Let's play a game."

****Okay, so first chapter introduces the OC, and gives some hints as to his past. Question though: When writing, many authors tend to use their character's last names as an identifier to the reader, whatever the other characters call them. I plan to stick with this, but should in-book characters refer to the OC as John or Jack? I'm okay with either, just want an opinion. Please review. **


	2. Man Down

****Well, here's chapter 2, with the introduction of the survivors we all know and love. For reference, this chapter occurs around 2 days BEFORE chapter 1, I simply started there for literary purposes. **

"You know what I miss?" Louis asked the room. "Checking email. Seeing what's new."

"You know," Francis said with false levity as he slid shells into his Benelli. "I love how you just skip over the part where we asked."

Zoey checked her rifle's sights on the wall and chuckled. "Aw, come on Francis. Don't be like that."

Bill merely scoffed. "Bah! Keep your computers, email…whatever. Just give me a pen and paper."

"How old are you again Bill?" Louis asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Let me put it this way." Francis said. He stood in front of the solid steel door and racked the slide of his shotgun. "Ol' Bill here didn't fight in the Vietnam war. He fought in the _Civil_ War."

"You're damn right I did!" Bill growled. He grabbed the bar blocking the door and looked at Francis, making sure the younger man was ready before he pulled it aside. Despite their rough banter, there was no way one would let another into unnecessary danger. "Now get your Confederate ass out that door and kill some Goddamn zombies!" Francis laughed and gave the old man a nod. Bill yanked the bar away from the door, and Francis put his boot right in the middle of it, slamming it open, following it up with an immediate shotgun blast.

The zombie who'd been standing in the doorway, clawing desperately at them, was thrown back into a dumpster. Francis followed, stepping out into the alley and looking around.

"All clear!" he called back inside. To the left, leading out to the street, a large red semi blocked the entire alley entrance. Their only path lay ahead. There were three or four zombies he could see, all in a semi-lucid state that occurred when they received no stimuli for enough time.

_Time to provide a little stimuli_, he thought.

Behind Francis, the other three survivors rushed out, weapons at the ready. Without any prompting, they opened up. Bill shot the nearest two with his M16. One of them fell backwards onto a flaming barrel. It caught fire and collapsed, its flesh starting to sizzle. On the stairs leading up to a warehouse door in the brick wall ahead, another fell when Louis let off a burst of fire. Francis blasted the one zombie sitting on a dumpster on the left. Only Zoey held back. She was watching the rooftops through the telescoping sight of the G36C she'd pulled off an infected SWAT cop a week or so North. As the team's best marksman, her job was to keep an eye out for Specials.

The gunfire echoed briefly through the alleyway before subsiding. "Let's move." Louis said, already nervous. The other's shared his apprehension. Sound carried, and brought only death. Bill looked at Zoey.

"We're clear." she said, confirming a lack of Specials.

They moved forward and entered the small warehouse. The door to the adjoining convenience store was open, and they could hear shuffling within. The zombies were quickly dispatched, leaving the store empty. Literally.

"Damn." Francis grumbled. "Picked clean."

Zoey knelt down and reached under a collapsed shelf. "Not quite. Some lightweight pain meds."

Bill grabbed the proffered bottle and examined it. "Ibuprofen, extra strength. Not good for much more than headaches, but I'll take it. Good find."

She rolled her eyes. _Thanks old man_. But she pocketed the small bottle anyway.

Over by the door to the outside street, Francis poked his shotgun out and peered around. He then brought his head back in and whistled. "Shit. It's heavy out there."

Bill cursed. "What's the count?"

Francis looked out again for a minute, then returned. "At least 40 total, probably more. Looks like we're at the top of a hill, a terrace or some shit. Bunch of apartments or something, and an old-ass street. I can see the bridge at the bottom, directly ahead. It's pretty foggy though."

"Is the bridge down?"

"Did I not just say it's foggy?"

"Alright, alright. No need to get testy."

When the four of them exited the store, they were indeed on a terrace, made of large paving stones made to look like old style Georgia, even though the neighborhood was less than 50 years old. The buildings were the same, looking like a step out of the 1920's. Only the modern power lines leading from the city behind them to the bridge ahead gave any evidence that they were in the 21st century. Well, that, and the Chevy Astro Van parked just on the edge of the terrace.

Even with the grime of weeks of neglect, and the concrete barriers of a failed military defense, Zoey was struck by the classical beauty of the street. "I've always liked old buildings like this." she reflected out loud.

"You wanna die in one?" Francis asked seriously. Zoey rolled her eyes again.

"Cut the chatter. Let's clean this mess up." Bill said forcefully. He jogged up to the nearest of the few zombies on the same level as the group and smashed it in the side of the head with his machete, removing _most_ of the top of its head. Their path to the edge was mostly clear besides, the dozen or so infected somewhat removed to the sides. None were paying attention either; despite the gunshots from inside the store, as soon as something stopped being interesting, they went back to doing nothing, until something became interesting again.

The survivors quickly cleared the terrace of infected. They were lucky that the military had tried to block bridge access to the public. Almost every side street leading to the area was blocked by high concrete barriers, limiting the number of zombies that could be in the area to those who were already there. They took up position at the edge of the terrace, looking over the street through an iron bar fence and looked out.

There were dozens of them, shambling around. Once in a while, one of the infected would bump into one of the cars parked along the side of the four-way intersection in front of the bridge. The batteries were long dead, preventing the alarms from going off, but that didn't stop the survivors from flinching every time it happened. They'd had more than one bad experience with car alarms, and after the run they'd had the last few days getting here, they weren't in a position to deal with another. They were low on ammo, weak from malnutrition, and covered in scratches and cuts which, while no threat from the Green Virus' infection, subjected them to all manner of more mundane infections which were more than capable of leaving them all crippled.

The bridge itself wasn't raised per-say, as Bill had feared, but they couldn't get on anyway. A massive steel barrier 12 feet high formed a tight barrier across the roadway, and both pedestrian access ways were blocked by high metal gates topped with barbed wire. Above the road was a large platform for maintenance and city crews, completely isolated from the rest of the bridge except by two ladders. The problem was that only the ladder on the right was even down, and they couldn't access it anyway without either dropping the barrier or unlocking the gate. There had to be some way to get across…there. Zoey noticed a dirty white generator set up next to the bridge lift's machine building. The shaft leading 15 feet into the air had a series of wires connected to it, leading into the building.

_Central power went out, so they decided to jury-rig a little backup supply_, she mused. She was impressed with their ingenuity in what must have been an extremely chaotic time. _But that's a big ass bridge. Can one little generator handle it?_

"A lot clearer than I expected for a river crossing." Bill observed. "Means one of two things. Either they managed to just about finish the evacuation from this side to the other…"

"Or they tried to evacuate from the other side to this one, and they failed." Zoey finished grimly.

"Yeah…"

"See that generator?" she asked, pointing.

Louis followed her finger. "That looks like what'll power the bridge."

"Only one though?" Zoey asked.

He scoffed. "No way. At least two, probably more." They trusted his word. Before, he'd been a systems tech at an engineering firm. His knowledge had pulled them out of a lot of scrapes. He smiled. "But there's hope guys. Look, there are other lines. Whoever set this up must have set up other generators. We've just gotta find 'em."

"And I love how you just skip over the part in the middle where we have to fight the undead hordes to get to them." Francis grumbled. Bill clapped him on the shoulder.

"Should be fun kid."

Francis groaned as a series of clacks and snaps were heard, as everyone checked their weapons and reloaded where needed. "Son of a bitch. At least there aren't any witches next to it."

"Murphy's law." was Zoey's simple reply.

They went down the stairs single file onto the street. Francis blasted a zombie at the foot of the stairs. On the street, the every zombie within visual range looked up at them.

"Don't bother with them." Bill said. "Just keep moving."

They swiftly traversed the open stretch of road to the generator, encircled by a chain link fence. Zoey dispatched the one zombie hanging around the generator with a smash of her rifle butt. She then put two long bursts into a trio of zombies just inside the open machine doors. Francis and Bill made a few kills of their own, while Louis got to work on the generator. He pressed a few buttons, testing its functions.

"Looks like it's in order." he muttered.

"_Looks_?" Francis hissed. Another zombie came around the corner. He smashed it in the face with his shotgun.

Louis made a _tsk_ noise with his tongue. "Come on, man! I've only seen this kinda thing done a couple of times, when the office staff got taken on tours of some of the sites. I paid attention, but it was a long time ago. Gimme a minute!"

"We might not have a minute…" Bill said. The noise they were causing was drawing more and more attention. The nearest infected were starting to wake up from their catatonic state. They were sniffing, jerking their heads towards the faint scent and sound of living humans. Those whose jaws were still intact began snapping them, their teeth clacking together in what Zoey thought was the perfect embodiment of the sounds made by the undead in the new World War Z film. It had only come out last year, how the hell was she to know that it was about to become reality? She shot one zombie just as its gaze flicked over to them and a growl rose in its throat.

Louis diligently continued working. Everyone else just tried to stay quiet, tried not to attract any more attention. "Almost…" He kept hitting the starter, but it just wouldn't kick in. It continued to sputter and go quiet. "Almost…got it!" The generator gave a throaty roar and came to life. The lights on the shaft extending into the air flared brightly, then settled to their more subdued glow. "Ha-ha!" he exclaimed, thrilled. "That's one down!" The rest of the streetlights came on as well, slowly flickering to life.

"Guys…" Zoey nearly whispered. A great howl went up from the undead as they were fully woken to the sounds of the generator at full steam, and they zeroed in on its sound. A howl of joy that heralded fresh meat. A howl that Zoey heard in her dreams almost every night, and often woke to in sheer terror, shooting up in a cold sweat, trying to keep quiet to avoid waking the others and showing her weakness.

"Aw, shit!" Bill cursed.

"Move!"

The survivors started a dead run, following the lines that ran above the street past the bridge. Every door on the street slammed open and zombies poured out. Zoey let off a running burst of fire into a zombie running at Bill. He didn't even flinch, just shrugged off the body as it fell on him without even slowing down.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…" Francis muttered continually.

Their weapons didn't stop firing so long as they had ammunition, and after weeks together with their favorite weapons, each was intimately familiar with their fellows combat habits. Francis took point, ahead of Bill. Zoey was to the side behind Bill, allowing her to snipe in all directions. Louis took up the rear, his Uzi spitting bullets into anything behind them.

"Don't stop moving!" Bill shouted.

"There's a lot of them behind us!" Louis said. "Zoey!"

"On it!" she said, turning around to join him in running backwards. Two weapons sprayed rounds, hitting chests, arms and heads and dropping zombies by the dozen. Francis stumbled as one particularly rotund zombie barreled around the tail end of a cube van, nearly running into him. He banked off the zombie's body and fired a shot from the hip into it. The buckshot tore through and severed the zombie's spine, dropping it instantly.

Bill fired two more shots, then his rifle clicked empty. He cursed and put his boot in the chest of his intended target. Francis glanced over momentarily when he noticed a slackening of fire coming from Bill's sector. "Re-fucking-loading!" he grumbled, shoved two more biting infected away from him as they interrupted him, the fresh magazine in his off hand.

Any half second where there wasn't a mindless flesh-eater in front of you was a moment of relief to reload your weapon and remove for half a minute the stress of wondering if your weapon would run dry at exactly the wrong moment. They were entering a construction zone at the bottom of the hill, where the road turned into packed dirt, dotted with traffic cones and reflective yellow tape.

"There's the generator!" Louis said unnecessarily.

"Hold on, I hear a Hun-" Francis' whirled around towards the sound, but his warning was cut off as the Hunter slammed into him from above, knocking him to the ground. It immediately started clawing at him.

"Son of a _bitch_!" Bill exclaimed, recoiling instinctively.

Francis fought back, grabbing the Hunter's arms and trying to keep it from scratching him. "Get…this…thing…off!" It screeched as Louis and shot it point blank in the head with a six round burst. Bill quickly recovered and grabbed the axe off his back. He swung it low like a gold club and hit the Hunter in the ribcage. It lifted off Francis and toppled off to the side.

"Guys!" Zoey complained, not liking being left alone to clear the street.

"Shit! Sorry Zoey!" Louis said, ever eager to please. He returned to her side and continued firing.

"No, it's alright." Francis grumbled. Bill helped him up with one hand, firing his pistol with the other. "I'll be fine."

"Quit bitching." Bill replied.

As they proceeded to move towards the generator again, the number of zombies attacking them began to peter off. This was partially due to the fact that they moved around the corner, and the zombies at the far end of the street lost sight, sound and interest in them. Mostly however, it was due to the grim fact that they'd torn out a sizeable chunk of Rayford's population already within the last few days, and the small city was quite simply running out of people. There would always be small nests, they knew, but they could perhaps hope that they wouldn't face any more hordes.

Louis skidded to a halt at the second generator and proceeded to repeat the process he'd started up the hill, this time faster, with fewer mistakes. The rest of the group picked off the occasional zombie that came around the corner, looking for its lost quarry.

"That's it!" Louis exclaimed only a few seconds after he started. The second generator grumbled to life as healthily as the first one did. At least they were well kept, Louis thought.

Suddenly, the entire street went strangely quiet as in the distance, a deep, animal roar split the air. IT was accompanied by a deep staccato reverberation in the ground that could only be one thing. The survivors all felt the blood drain from their faces as they realized exactly what that one thing was.

"Fuck me." Francis whispered.

"Weapons check!" Bill ordered, his commanding voice not wavering an inch. "Spread out! He can only go after one of us at a time. If we can surround him, we can confuse him." The four survivors began walking at a moderate pace up the street, back the way they'd come. Any straggling zombies immediately became an afterthought, no more effort being devoted to their execution than might be dedicated to choosing a style of tying ones shoes.

"I _hate_ these things." Zoey whispered, echoing Francis' most favorite words.

"We'll be fine." Bill said gently. His voice surprised her, reminding her so much of her father's. Calm, collected, confident. No fear, no reproach. She wondered how many scared young men had been calmed by that voice as their grizzled Sergeant led them into a foreign jungle. Then she wondered how many had been killed anyway.

The pounding of massive footsteps on the ground became more pronounced as the creature drew closer. As it did, Zoey, who wasn't even out of her teens yet, and who carried that teenage propensity to fixate on seemingly irrelevant elements, noticed something off about it. Like when you were playing piano with a metronome, but your beat was just slightly off regardless, making both sounds sound strange.

"Does anyone else feel that?" she asked. Ahead, a group of two dozen zombies came into view from behind the cube van, running at them. Or running _away_ from something, she thought grimly.

"Feel what?" Francis snapped apprehensively. He was feeling a lot worse about things than he felt anyone else should. As the only shotgun user, he had to get a lot closer to be of any help. Close was the last thing he wanted to be to one of these things. The tall concrete barriers at the far end of the street began to shake as they were pounded on.

Any conversation was halted momentarily as they were forced to deal with the new zombies. They were spread out at least, and all coming from one direction, making things somewhat easier. The survivors approached the cube van and the street started to level out again.

"It's too fast." Zoey said cryptically. She hardly understood what she was talking about either. She just knew something felt wrong.

Louis glanced worriedly at her. "Zoey, what are you-" Louis' cry of surprise was cut off with a choke. Any semblance of order in their firing line dissolved instantly as the seven circles of hell descended on them all at once.

As Louis was yanked away by the Smoker, infected jumped at them from the balconies above; zombies in the upper stories of the buildings who'd been unable to make it to the ground floor the first time around were now eager for another try. And the concrete barrier was finally smashed down, revealing another few dozen zombies, and _two_ tanks.

"Fuck me _sideways_." Francis complained loudly.

"Louis!" Zoey cried, seeing her friend dragged away. She bashed zombies left and right as she struggled to get to him. A Smoker on the roof had shot its tongue around his neck and was now trying to hang him. He'd managed to catch a foot on the metal railing, but it was being stretched to the limit, as was his neck. He couldn't breathe, so was reduced to making short sputtering noises in his attempt to call for help. Then with a wet crack, his voice caught in his throat as his knee was torn and shredded. The pain both nearly knocked him out and kept him brutally awake. He made a strangled noise that would haunt Zoey for many weeks to come, a sobbing cross between a cry of pain and a whimper. His eyes watered from the sheer agony and his eyes bulged almost out of their sockets. His now mangled leg slipped free of its unfortunate anchor.

Before the Smoker could haul him away, Zoey took a running leap, stepped off the railing, and grabbed the tongue a foot above Louis' head. Her body slammed into him, making him cry out in fresh agony as his knee twisted further. He did black out for a second as Zoey's extra weight made the Smoker drop them to the pavement, landing on both his legs. What brought him back was the Smoker's renewed yank on his neck. Zoey unsheathed the combat knife she'd pulled off an infected National Guardsman and started hacking at the tongue.

She cried out in pain as a zombie fell past her on its way down from an upper story and slashed her back, cutting right through her already damaged pink hoodie and opening up a shallow gouge in the flesh. She ignored it and continued cutting. Suddenly she was pushed roughly aside by Francis, and a moment later, watched as Bill swung his axe, the blade cutting right through the tongue and freeing Louis.

"We need to _move_!" Bill shouted angrily, as though it were her fault.

"He's injured!" Zoey replied defensively. Francis moved in and grabbed Louis in a fireman's carry.

"I've got him. Just keep me covered!"

The four of them made a mad dash for the final generator. There was no fire discipline, no aiming. Any zombie that came within a few feet was blasted with bullets until it went down. Bill and Zoey announced their reloads with panicky voices. Francis did his best to cover their reloads with his pistol, but he could only do so much.

The renewed hordes of infected were proving something of a boon, to their surprise. They were thick enough to provide some impediment to the Tanks' charge, slowing the two gargantuan beasts enough to give the survivors a chance. Still, the lines above led them into the building just _across_ from the bridge's machine building, and they burst through the door with only inches to spare. The lead Tank's arm followed them in, grabbing desperately for any part of them. Bill turned around instantly and sprayed it with bullets, forcing it to angrily withdraw and look for a wider way in. Zoey dispatched the trio of zombies in the room with them. The other Tank, which hadn't learned its companion's lesson, simply started pounding on the doorframe. It was brick with a steel frame, but it wouldn't hold up for long against an angry Tank.

"We are in deep shit." Francis wheezed, exhausted from carrying Louis.

"And here I was thinking fucking Khe Sanh was a rough slog." Bill grumbled.

Francis grunted in surprise as Louis started struggling in his arms. "I can walk Francis. I _need_ to walk."

"Alright, alright. Jesus!" Francis carefully let Louis down. The man's jaw was shaking as he gingerly placed all his weight on his good leg, leaning on Francis as he did so. A small whimper of pain crossed his lips, but he was otherwise stoic.

"I can…" he tried to force out. He took a shuddering breath and tried again, this time more realistically. "I just need…a hand." he said, almost shamefully. Francis helped Louis limp as quickly as possible up the stairs and through another door to the generator. Each of them thanked the Gods above that this last one was _inside_, giving them some shelter from the infected.

Whatever he was feeling in his leg, Louis' hands worked just as well as ever. He only took a few seconds to work his magic, and get the final generator up and running. He merely nodded determinedly in acceptance of everyone's praises.

"How's the knee son?" Bill asked, his grandfatherly voice returning momentarily in their brief respite.

Louis laughed humorlessly. "I left my knee back there. This is just a sack of meat between two long bones."

Francis waved at him dismissively. "Ah, don't worry about it. I can set it once we're on that bridge." The other three survivors had been shocked to learn some weeks earlier that while Francis had been in prison a few years before, he'd been on the trustee list for good behavior, and had been allowed to help out in the prison infirmary. He'd picked up a lot of tricks there, and he'd quickly proven himself an able medic for the group.

Louis joked, "Yeah, I don't think duct tape and engine grease will work on this bad boy."

"Fuck you."

"I think I saw a machine gun up on the bridge." Zoey recalled. "If we can get you to that, you can lay down some serious fire for us."

"Yeah." Louis brightened considerably at the prospect of being an asset rather than a burden. "Let's do it!"

"Getting there should be fun." Francis pointed out.

Bill looked between the other three, taking in their ammunition levels and who had what on them. He turned to Zoey. "Can you take him?" he said, nodding his head at Louis.

Zoey nodded. "I got it. Just stay on my left side." she said to him. Zoey was their best one handed pistol shot, after all the range time with her father. Louis shuffled off Francis' shoulder and over to her.

"I can still shoot." he said determinedly.

"It's only a hundred yards to the bridge. We've made farther distances in worse scrapes than this." Bill said encouragingly. He neglected to point out that Louis would have a hell of a time getting up the ladder. "Once we're up there, we can take as long as we need to rest. Across the river, it's a straight shot to the Keys."

Zoey and Francis shared a look. Zoey looked anything but convinced. Francis, on the other hand, shrugged and said grimly, "Well, the more shit you die dealing with, the bigger the Goddamn hero you are. And I, for one, am gonna die one big Goddamn hero!" She smiled faintly at the joke, trying to let herself be amused. But all she could feel was dread.

_I wish you were here dad._

"You guys ready?" Bill asked. He stepped carefully over to the door. It seemed the Tank had gone off to join its fellow in looking for a new way to get at them, and the more mundane zombies had forgotten them entirely. Francis reached into his pocket and pulled out his last Molotov cocktail. He pulled the cap off the bottle and thoroughly soaked a rag in the alcohol before stuffing it into the neck of the bottle.

"Hell yes."

Bill led the way out the door, crouched down slightly and peering around for what had only minutes before been raging at them. Zoey followed, her pace slowed by Louis hanging off her shoulder. He was trying, really, but his knee was a mangled mess. Zoey wondered at how he even managed to stay conscious, let alone how he managed not to be screaming in pain. She'd certainly underestimated the man.

Francis came last. As he walked through the door, he turned around and walked backwards. He tracked his shotgun up and down the building, searching warily for anything and everything. "See anything?" he whispered.

Bill shook his head. "Just regular zombies. Where the hell are the Tanks?"

"This is too creepy." Zoey said. She followed close behind as Bill stepped onto the street. He angled over to the bridge, all the while hoping that all he'd have to do to lower it was press an easy to find button. "What do you think Francis?" He didn't answer. "Francis?"

Francis surprised her by actually _shushing_ her. He carefully watched the shadows behind the building. He could have sworn he'd seen movement. Then he nearly lost control of his bowels as he realized it wasn't a shadow that was moving. The Tank was hiding in the dark, waiting for them. Now it was watching, like a cougar, stalking its prey, letting them know they were dead.

He vaguely recalled a line from that one dinosaur movie: _It's vision is based on movement._ Maybe if they kept still, it wouldn't be able to see them. It was certainly something they hadn't tried before. "Everyone. Stop. Moving." he said slowly, forcefully.

Bill scoffed. "Stop moving? Francis, what the hell have you been drink-"

"Stop. Moving." he repeated. The three of them stopped, sensing the tension in his voice.

"Francis, what is it? Oh." Bill's voice dropped off as he noticed the Tank as well.

Zoey cursed quietly, then whispered, "Do you think it can…see us?" The Tank responded with a low, menacing growl. "Umm…"

Then their vision was drawn upwards as, on the roof, the second Tank slowly peeked over the edge. Its shadow was so large, it left the survivors in darkness all on its own. It only stared at them for half a second before it inhaled, then let out a massive bellow. The second Tank joined it.

"Fuck it. Run!" Francis yelled.

The four of them turned and ran as fast as they could. Louis pushed himself, struggling not to scream, instead emitting a sort of hoarse moan. Zoey tried to lift him off his bad leg a little higher, but was distracted as a renewed horde of zombies attacked. Behind them, Francis tried desperately to light his Molotov as both Tanks charged at the same time. His hands were shaking so badly, it took him half a dozen times to even strike his Zippo.

The Tank from the rooftop landed right beside its charging fellow and both ran at the survivors, screaming bloody murder. Francis finally managed to light the vodka-soaked rag, and threw it at the Tank's feet. It shattered, coating them both with burning alcohol. They reared up in pain and anger, flailing their arms. The one on the left smashed its fist into the other, incurring an indignant smack in return. This prompted both to stop chasing the survivors to exact revenge on each other, giving a moment of respite.

Bill finally reached the bridge gate, a trail of zombies lying dead behind, thanks to his, Zoey's and Louis' handiwork. He was right; there was indeed a control panel. Among the knobs and buttons was a single rocker switch labelled _Gate_, with an up and down indicator on opposite sides. He mashed his thumb on the _down_ side, and was rewarded was a screech of metal. The 12 foot tall rusted metal barrier dropped halfway, stopped, then slammed into the pavement of the bridge.

"We're on! Let's move!" he cried. He and Zoey struggled to get Louis up the narrow ladder. Eventually they resorted to Bill pulling from above while Zoey pushed his good leg from below. Francis kept them covered from the zombies who were drawn by the sound of the gate falling.

Zoey ran up next to him, her work complete. "Where the hell are they all coming from?" Francis asked rhetorically.

"I know, right?" Zoey replied. "This town has a population of like 14 thousand, doesn't it?" Zombies kept coming by the dozens. Francis shot a dense cluster of them, two shells full of double-aught buckshot ripping through the rotten corpses like tissue paper.

"The Tanks are coming!"

Both Francis and Zoey stopped firing at Louis' warning. They looked over at where they'd left the Tanks, hoping against hope that Louis was wrong. He wasn't. Both tanks were coming now, having long since been doused by their scuffle. Now their skin was charred black, making them even more terrifying, and both were charging full tilt at the two survivors on the ground. Francis and Zoey began backing away slowly.

A whirring sound caught their attention. They looked up just as Louis opened up on the Tanks with the M134 Minigun mounted on the bridge. It put out a devastating 100 rounds of 7.62x51mm ammunition every second; a devastating amount of firepower. The bullets ripped into the Tanks, tearing chunks of burnt flesh right off them. Both Tanks slowed, and one raised its arm in front of its face to protect itself.

"Hurry up you two!" Bill called. They didn't need to be told twice. Francis waited at the bottom while Zoey let her rifle hang on its sling and began to climb the ladder. He followed immediately after. Suddenly he heard a sort of heavy splash, and he felt heat from below him: a Spitter. The ladder below him was covered in sick green acid, and starting to melt.

"Go, go, go, go, go." he said hurriedly to Zoey. The acid was following him, eating away at the ladder. She looked down, saw what he was talking about, and picked up her pace. Bill helped her haul herself up to the top, then Francis. They both laid down for a few seconds to catch their breath.

"Fuck…this…shit." Francis panted, his chest heaving.

"Party ain't over yet." Bill said. He hauled the larger man back to his feet. "We still need to raise the bridge." One Tank was dead, and the other had retreated to safety, howling in frustration that it was unable to reach its quarry, but there were still plenty of regular threats on the horizon. Louis directed his fire over to the Spitter, chewing it up in only half a second. All pain in his leg forgotten, Louis let out a savage cry of victory.

Zoey had taken it upon herself to raise the bridge. As the youngest of the untrained three, she had the most reasonable expectation of success, rather than confused button-pressing. To her credit, she did manage to find the right button in the mess of switches. She even remembered that you had to twist and pull out the red emergency stop button before anything would happen. She was struck, however, with a problem no one could have anticipated. As soon as she pressed the 'Raise' switch, the green light on the top of the board turned yellow, and nothing happened.

She pressed it again. Then she hit the emergency stop, pulled it back out, and tried again. Still nothing. "Son of a-Louis!" she shouted, aware that Louis was occupied, firing a weapon that was quickly running out of ammunition. She had to get his attention. "Louis!" He turned. "The bridge isn't moving!"

"What? Why?" he yelped. She gaped wide-eyed at him.

"Because I didn't call it back this morning, I don't fucking know! I pressed the button and the little green light turned yellow!"

"Yellow? What…" Louis' face scrunched in concentration as he thought back to the minimal knowledge he had. He looked around, and noticed that some of the street lights that had previously been lit were out. Specifically, the ones right in front of the bridge. Then his face lit up with realization, and just as quickly fell again. "Oh shit! Too much power usage at once tripped the breaker on the primary generator! Someone needs to start it up again!"

"Start it-_that_ generator?" she demanded, pointing at the one right next to the machine building, where most of the zombies were congregating.

"Yes!"

Zoey cursed. "Bill!"

"I heard!" the old man replied distractedly. He continued to pour fire down with his M16, but there were just so many, and he kept having to stop to deal with Special Infected before they could become a problem. Smokers and Spitters were the most dangerous, as they could strike from a distance, and they did so with alarming frequency. He was the only one apart from Zoey with a weapon capable of reaching those distances.

Zoey ran up to the railing on the other side of Louis. She fired a few shots into the horde, then began to strip off her extra weapons, explosives, and anything that would weigh her down or give the zombies a handhold with which to grab her. She'd have to be damn fast to make this work.

"I'm gonna go restart the generator!" she announced.

"No!" Louis interrupted. "You need to reset the breaker first Zoey!"

"Where is it?" Bill demanded. He was getting a look in his eye, though no one noticed it.

Louis explained, "The little black button on the left side, near the bottom! Just smack it to reset the breaker! Then restart the generator!"

"Understood!" Zoey prepared to climb down the other ladder, the one _farthest_ from the generator. She took a few deep breaths, and she thought she may have even said a little prayer to steady her nerves. Just as she put a hand on the ladder's top gate, she was interrupted.

"Don't move kid! I've got this one!" Before she could even ascertain what Bill meant, the old man stepped back from his firing position and quickly began to descend the ladder.

"Bill, no!" Zoey cried out desperately. Going down there alone was suicide, though she had easily passed over that fact when _she_ was the one going down. Louis and Francis called out for Bill to stop as well; Francis was torn between dragging the old man back up and continuing to fire.

"Cover me!" Bill shouted. They had no choice but to comply.

They watched in horror as Bill climbed down the emergency access ladder they hadn't been able to reach from the ground, and which was now further shortened by the effects of the Spitter's acid, let his legs hang down, then dropped the last 12 feet to the ground. His special forces training kicked in; he kept his feet together and rolled with the landing, managing to avoid broken legs. But it was still a big drop, and he wasn't a 22 year old paratrooper anymore. It took him a second to recover; a second he didn't have.

A single zombie managed to sneak through the covering fire and pounce on his neck, sinking its teeth into the wrinkled flesh. He cried out in pain and anger, and tried to fight it off, to no avail. It wasn't until Zoey managed to get a bead on it, even with her shaky hands, and put a burst into its back with her assault rifle that he managed to get free. Bill heard her screaming with rage and horror as she fired. He put a hand to his neck to staunch the bleeding. He knew it was too late though, and his heart sank.

He steeled himself, no longer thinking of his own life, but those of the people he'd sworn privately to protect with the very life he knew was about to end. "Just…need…the generator." he grunted, picking himself up off the ground.

"Bill! Get back up here!" Zoey cried. Bill ignored her. Only one goal now in his mind.

Bill lurched around the chain link fence towards the generator, already feeling the effects of blood loss. Zombies dropped left and right around him, and his path remained clear as his friends dedicated the entirety of their concentration on covering him. Francis had taken up Louis Uzi, managing to provide something approaching accurate fire.

Up above, Zoey was on auto-pilot, her father's range lessons coming back to her on an unconscious level. With Bill, of all people, needing her protection, she shot worthy of a Marine Sniper School honors graduate. Every pull of the trigger sent a short, controlled burst into the head or upper chest of one of the infected.

Even so, she could do nothing but watch helplessly as Bill made it to the generator, only to be set upon by a dozen of the damn things. She was forced to be slow and deliberate in her sniping, lest an errantly sprayed round hit the very man she was trying to protect. So she made deliberate, single shots to the head of every zombie. It was too slow. Louis kept up a solid stream of bullets across the gate to the enclosed generator area, at the very edge of the swing of the minigun. But the zombies went around, coming out from within the machine building itself. Zoey flinched as she heard Bill's strength finally break, and he screamed in agony as he was bitten and torn at again and again. But the lights above the generator flickered, and they could all hear it come to life once again.

When they finally managed to clear the zombies from the area, the sight made Zoey's breath catch in her chest. Bill was kneeling on the ground, one hand holding his rifle, the other resting limply on the generator's starter button. There wasn't an inch of clean skin on him; he was soaked in blood and bile and necrotic fluids from his attackers. The other three survivors froze at the sight, unable to tear their gaze away from the grisly scene. Then, to their surprise, Bill began to stand. Despite the multitudinous cuts and gashes covering his body, he was still alive.

Around the corner, the last remaining Tank returned, ambling towards him almost casually, like it _was playing_ with him. It knew just as well as Bill did that there was no escape for the elderly human. It could afford to take its time; it was well outside the swing radius of the minigun, and Zoey and Francis didn't possess the firepower to take it out. Bill watched it approach with a resigned expression. His friends on the bridge yelled and pleaded with him to make a run for it. He didn't even try. He was determined to go out with some final shred of dignity.

No, he thought suddenly, not just dignity. _If I'm going out today, I'm gonna take as many of these bastards with me as I can._ His mind went unbidden and recalled a similar scene over 30 years previous, where he and his best friend had escaped from the Hanoi Hilton. Tom had been wounded during the escape, but he'd hidden the full extent of his injuries from Bill until finally, he just couldn't go on any farther. Bill had felt like shit leaving his friend behind with a brick of Russian plastic explosives, but he was emaciated after six weeks in captivity, and he just didn't have the strength to fight the man's dying wish. And when he'd heard a massive explosion back in the jungle a few minutes later, he'd known exactly what had happened. All he had today was his assault rifle, but damn if he wasn't going to do as much damage with it as he possibly could.

Bill hefted his assault rifle, a lot harder than it had been before, and turned to face the Tank in full. For the first time in his life, he did what he'd spent so many hours chewing out raw recruits for doing. He fired on full automatic from the hip. He bellowed his war cry with the time-honored rifle until his voice was gone. When it ran dry, he drew his combat knife, made peace with his God for the last time, and charged.

The survivors watched helplessly as Bill attacked the Tank. The behemoth was so shocked, Bill actually managed to get up to it. He sank his knife into its chest and held on tight as the Tank flailed. He was flung away and smashed into the generator, slumping to the ground in a broken heap, where he was instantly set upon by a Hunter. It was over in seconds.

Barely able to see through her tears, Zoey turned from the spectacle and ran up to the control panel. She hit the switch again, and was rewarded with a jolt as the gate heaved shut, and the bridge began to rise into the air, a final gift from the man who'd skilfully led them through hell and back again for weeks on end, with no rest in sight. Below them, the Tank roared in victory and stomped away, leaving them with a few dozen zombies too stupid to accept that the survivors were now inaccessible, and the grisly scene of Bill's corpse sprawled against the generator.

Zoey leaned against the wall and slid to the ground, tears flowing freely now. She covered her mouth with her hands and tried in vain to stop. _He's gone…he's just…oh, God, Bill. First dad, now you. What…_ Zoey was lost.

Francis walked up cautiously beside her, a bleak expression on his face. But seeing her eyes full of tears, his plan to comfort her went out the window; her despair was infectious. He simply sat down across from her. "You old bastard." he said, not really to Zoey. "You really did it old man. Shit, looks like I owe you another one."

"We can't just leave him!" Louis said frantically. "He's still…he's still down there! We can't just-"

"He's gone Louis." Zoey despaired. "He's not coming back. We've lost him."

****Alas, our noble friend Bill has fallen, as he does canonically in the game. I had to take some creative liberties in a number of places, simply to get around decisions that were made by Valve for game balancing purposes, or because story was of secondary importance to them. **

**I've made Tanks slightly less berserk, and more capable of thought (slightly) than they are for the 30 seconds you see one in a game. They need to have some cunning; I think that makes them even more terrifying. Also, the existence of hordes, while excellent for gameplay, just isn't feasible in real life. The size of a horde is directly correlated with the population of the town in which the horde gathers. The only exception is areas that became evacuation centers, which would naturally have a disproportionate number of people. And I've made the zombies fairly similar to the zombies from World War Z (great movie), including something of a lead up in alerting them and getting their attention, rather than an instant on/off thing. **

**You'll note in this chapter that my descriptions may have been less than accurate in terms of the environment. This is the only place you'll see this, since this is the only chapter occurring in an area covered by the game. From this point forward, things should occur in original environments. **

**Please keep reading and reviewing. **


	3. Shots in the distance

****Alright, here's chapter 3. Sorry it took so long, I've been very busy with work, and with my other, much larger piece. But, I suspect that no one reading this is reading _only_ this, so I'm sure you've kept yourselves entertained otherwise, and are not waiting with baited breath upon my every word. If you are, perhaps you should get out more. **

A single, vindictive curse echoed across the plains. Aubrey let the word hang in the air for a few moments before he regained control of himself. He placed one knee on the ground and clenched his fists, breathing calmly until the pain subsided. When it did, he reached over, picked up the metal plate that had slipped free of its clamp onto his leg, and placed it back where he wanted it.

Rafe sidled up cautiously, his head bowed, and gave a concerned whine. "No, I'm fine bud." Aubrey reassured him, rubbing his head affectionately. "Just didn't clamp it tight enough. I've got it now." He tightened the clamp again as Rafe trotted off to resume his guard duties. When he was _certain_ that the plate was securely fastened to the workbench, Aubrey picked up the cutting torch from where it too hard dropped and resumed his work.

Ever since clearing the farmhouse and surrounding outbuilding eight days previous, Aubrey had been had at work turning the farm house into an extensive and well-defended safe house. It was what he'd been doing pretty well since the shit hit the fan. It wasn't strictly speaking his job, but he and those like him had been tasked with doing what no one else could: jumping willingly _into_ the White zones, with the ultimate goal of helping as many uninfected people as possible reach safety. And in all that time, Aubrey had noticed one immutable fact: when people are on the run from hordes of zombies, a great big sign that says 'Safe House Ahead' will draw them like flies to honey. Metal doors and barred windows would do more to protect them than any amount of firepower.

Aubrey finished his cut and reached over to twist the knob, cutting the flow of gas from the tank to the torch and dousing the flame. He stood up so the metal could cool for a few minutes before he affixed it to the safe house door he was constructing. While he waited, he sat on the porch with his lunch and looked out at the field. Rafe stood alert about 50 yards from the front door, his ears twitching, on the alert for any sound or smell that might be associated with the infected. Over the last eight days, over a dozen infected had wandered into the farm house's area. Rafe had sniffed them all out, and Aubrey had dealt with them before they'd come within 100 yards.

The main safe house door was the last component he had to put on the house to seal it. The windows were already barred, and the back door, and one side door had already been treated with a similarly robust door. Every access point except those three was permanently sealed. The steel he'd acquired from salvage around the farm, and the nearby road. The torch was part of the equipment setup he'd been carting around in his truck since he'd raided a Home Depot in DC. Along with anything else he could possibly need to construct a safe house, and, from CIA headquarters in Langley, more ammunition than he could ever use.

He put the last bit of jerky in his mouth and washed it down with what remained of his warm beer. He stood up and put his gloves on in preparation to move the door, when he noticed Rafe perk up. He stopped, his hand drifting almost casually to the pistol on his hip.

"What's up bud?" he called. Rafe whined, then started to bark loudly, staring in the same direction. Aubrey followed his gaze. On the horizon, he saw the tallest buildings of a nearby town. But he couldn't see why Rafe was agitated. "Rafe, quiet!" The dog fell silent instantly and looked back at him, waiting for more instruction. Aubrey listened.

He heard…something. He walked forward, off the porch to lose the subtle creaking noises. He knelt to the ground and closed his eyes, dedicating his entire concentration to listening. He heard birds, insects, the wind in the trees.

Gunfire.

With the world so quiet, sound could travel a long way. Now that he knew what to listen for, it was easy to hear. Automatic weapons, more than one. It was a long way off, probably in that town, but it was distinct. He tried, but he couldn't make out what kind of weapons they were using. But he could tell it was frantic, rather than controlled. Whoever was shooting was having a hell of a time.

"No." Aubrey said to Rafe's questioning gaze. The dog looked at him with his head tilted to the side, panting and wagging his tail, a sure sign he wanted to go check it out. "We're not getting involved in that. Too many unknowns." Rafe understood his tone at least, and gave a small whine. "You know procedure Rafe. We'll finish up here and check it out in a couple of days. Now come on, let's get back to work."

Some people might call it harsh, but Aubrey knew that it was the right decision. That town-he walked over to his truck and pulled out a map of the area. Rayford, Georgia-was far enough away that it would be either a four hour drive, given the blocked roads, or he could really push it and go off-road (his truck could more than handle it), but the noise would draw Zeke, and possibly negate any help he could offer to the shooters. Either way, by the time he got there, the fight would almost certainly be over. Either he could reconnect with the survivors, which he could do just as effectively a few days from now, or he'd be looking at a big mess on the street, which he could also do just as effectively days from now. But if he went in guns blazing today, then he'd have to fight his way through. By waiting, he could infiltrate, and possibly avoid confrontation altogether. To him, it wasn't much of a choice.

Despite his admonition that they return to work, Aubrey hardly worked at all, instead listening to the battle going on in the distance. He couldn't hear the inevitable shouts of whoever was shooting, but even without them, he could draw a mental map of the battle. He could hear the ebb and flow of battle, the hordes, the massive mutated infected dubbed 'Titans' by official sources, but known by the general populace by the equally accurate moniker 'Tank'.

_Is that…a car?_

When it was over, Aubrey grabbed his sniper rifle off the truck and aimed it at the road. For nearly five minutes he watched, but nothing passed by. Either they were taking a different road, and maybe even a different direction entirely, or he'd misheard. Either way, it would be a while before he felt secure enough to move towards the city. With the show over, he got back to work.

Two days after he first heard the weapons fire, Aubrey was finishing packing up his truck. It was his own; not knowing how long he'd be in the field, he'd taken the time to go to his apartment in Washington DC and pick it up. It was a Hennessey Ford F-150 SVT Velociraptor pick-up; in his opinion, the most incredible machine ever developed by the hand of man. He'd bought and upgraded it the year before, then thrown in a roll cage, a delta-shaped dozer blade, and tires whose pressure he could control from inside the truck, and could run flat. The original paint color was white, with the mud detailing black, but most of that had been overridden by the brown of mud, and the red and black of dried zombie blood. He was a bit of a splatter junkie.

He packed his weapons into the back of the crew cab, where he kept his personal effects. Before leaving, he double checked that only one of the safe house doors was unlocked, and the other was securely sealed, with clear signage all around leading people to the open door. He also had a dozen signposts in his truck, with cans of spray paint that he'd place at intervals leading from the safe house to the road, and a little bit beyond, to catch as much attention as possible.

Aubrey let Rafe climb into the passenger seat, then got in himself. At this point, he swapped his camouflage baseball cap for a brown cowboy hat, and started the truck. The powerful 600 horsepower V8 gave a throaty roar, accentuated by the open muffler, and Aubrey grinned like a happy child. He tapped the center console, and a Lynyrd Skynyrd riff started playing from the speakers. With a last look at the completed safe house, Aubrey hit the gas and peeled away from the building and aimed towards the highway leading to the city.

He was on the highway for only an hour, driving with relative caution on the shoulder, around the stalled traffic, when his GPS showed him that he was getting close to what he called the ghost zone. Past this line, he reverted to his training and went complete stealth. He parked his truck, put suppressors on all his weapons, and proceeded as though he were behind enemy lines. He hadn't even brought his truck to the farm house until two days _after_ his initial attack; he'd scouted the entire area to ensure there were no nests or lingering Special infected. This would be the same, except he'd be scouting an entire small city. A big job, though it could be significantly eased by finding a high vantage point.

Off to the side of the road, he spotted a break in the trees where he could park. It looked like a farm access road that had fallen into disuse long before the Great Panic. He pulled in, stuck it in park, and shut the engine off. Outside, he pulled a large camouflage tarp out of the box in the back and stretch it over the entire truck. He left the rear cab door exposed though. He opened the door to grab his scout kit, and select his loadout for the trip.

He kept his M110, and made sure his suppressor was still in working order. Examining the bore, he figured he had a few hundred more shots with it. All good. He threw in two 20 round magazines of the sabot rounds, and four extra regular magazines, with one in the gun. For close range work, a Noveske Diplomat compact assault rifle. Again, a suppressor, along with an Aimpoint red dot sight, angled foregrip, and a full laser/light package. He had a bare Glock 22 and Sig P228 for his sidearms.

His pack was small. He always spent the first day just looking around. He'd return to the truck in the evening, sleep there, then bring a big pack into the field to set up a base camp somewhere on the edge of town. He had a few days of food, some ropes and gear for getting around, and a set of NVG's if he was caught out at night.

Before leaving, Aubrey brought a jerry can up to the road and filled it with siphoned gas from the cars. He topped off the tank in his truck, and put the rest in the back with a dozen others in various states of fill. Finally, he pulled Rafe's combat vest out of the back, and Rafe patiently waited while he put it on. In addition to providing protection against bullets and, more to the point, bites, it had a forward facing camera, a radio to allow them to keep in communication, a med kit, and a few extra magazines for Aubrey's weapons.

The two companions started down the road, moving at a light jog through the soft roadside grass. They were completely silent; two hunters, their experience together so extensive, they worked as a single unit, completely unstoppable.

On average, there were half a dozen infected every 50 feet of road. Those were the free ones. Of those, there would be one or two every few hundred yards that was looking in the right direction long enough to notice the two living beings. Most would lose interest the moment they ran past a few seconds of chase time. Those more persistent ones were dispatched with Aubrey's katana, rather than a firearm.

The other zombies, far more populous, were those still in their cars. What appeared to be hundreds of people were still belted into their seats. Some had been bitten before getting in, and had simply turned. Unfortunately, most appeared to have been perfectly healthy, but trapped. Traffic was so packed on the road, no one could open their doors to run. Windows had been smashed, arms and heads had reached in, and that was that. The chaos and terror was something Aubrey remembered well, and would have preferred to forget.

Two miles down, the road, which was forced to follow the natural sways and flows of the land, took a large curve to the right, away from the city, and continued on into the distance. Presumably, it would later curve back to enter the town, but Aubrey took it as a good point to leave the road altogether. He knelt by the road, keeping an eye out for Zeke, and checked his position on his map, which he kept in a transparent sleeve on the outside of his left forearm. He checked his compass reading, and for good measure, he tore the door off a rusted old station wagon and placed it conspicuously upside down next to a Civic, marking his exit point from the road and acting as a way marker for his return.

Aubrey and Rafe entered the woods and their pace slowed significantly. Every 50 yards, Aubrey would silently signal to Rafe to stop, and they'd take a knee and simply listen to the forest. There were probably dozens of zombies who'd wandered off the road and into the woods, and the easiest way to keep track of them-and any threat, really-was to know what nature was supposed to sound like, and know when it sounded different.

Fortunately, the trees were comfortably spread out, and the brush wasn't too thick in enough places that an easy path could be carved. Coupled with the layer of morning dew that had yet to dissipate, since it was only late morning, and their passage was effectively silent.

Rafe ran up a fallen tree propped on another stump and stopped, looking around, his ears flicking in every direction. Aubrey climbed carefully over a soft pile of moss to avoid sinking in and watched the dog. After a few moments, he paused and tilted his head, as though he'd found something interesting. It appeared whatever it was wasn't a threat though, as he jumped down off the tree and proceeded. He kept a good distance ahead of Aubrey, having much better nose and ears.

After only a few more seconds, Rafe stopped again. He issued a low growl and his ears flicked to the left, followed closely by the rest of his head. "What've we got?" Aubrey asked quietly. Then he saw it.

A tall, gangly zombie surrounded by a cloud of noxious smoke was a dozen yards away, loping quickly to Aubrey's ten o'clock. It hadn't even noticed the two of them, intent as it was on its target. Aubrey had never seen one of them move so fast before. He started following; whatever it was interested in, he was too.

A trio of gunshots rang out. Aubrey dropped and raised his assault rifle to firing position in one swift movement. He almost called out, "Contact!" before he stopped himself. He'd managed to forget that his team was gone. But those gunshots would have attracted any Zeke in the woods. He was well camouflaged, but whoever was shooting had just rung the dinner bell.

* * *

Zoey took a deep breath to curb her apprehension, and stepped around the thick truck of the tree to examine her handiwork. Her heart soared as she saw exactly what she'd hoped. A rabbit was hanging a few feet off the ground, trapped by the snare she'd set the night before.

_God, finally, something goes right!_

Since they'd barricaded themselves on the bridge in Rayford, Louis and Francis had been relying on her-and her father's lessons-to provide food. It had been a long time since she'd been hunting with the old man, however, and the results were less than stellar. Though Louis was too polite to say, Francis had no trouble pointing out how tired they were of salvaged canned food and squirrel. Rabbit would go a long way toward shutting him up.

He'd been unusually pissy since…since Bill died. Without the aged vet to keep him in check, his sarcasm and biting complaints were louder and more frequent than ever. She understood objectively that everyone grieved differently, but he could have had a little more consideration towards her own grieving. Things hadn't exactly been easy since losing him. Taking hours to fall asleep, trying to keep tears from manifesting and destroying what credibility she had with the males-she needed that credibility! If she was going to get the three of them to the Keys, they had to respect-

Was that really what she was? Had she taken over Bill's mantle of leadership? Zoey actually stopped packing the rabbit away in her makeshift game bag to consider that thought. Sure, she'd been working hard to keep herself busy, to keep darker thoughts away as much as possible, and maybe that had translated to taking a little more initiative than she would have with Bill around, but surely the two men, both of whom were at least 10 years older than her, with far more experience in just about everything, had better things to do than look to _her_ for command. Right?

The three of them _had_ settled into their respective roles since the incident, which turned out to be an extension of their tasks under Bill; since he had slipped into his role as undisputed leader many weeks before, he'd kept them tight like the units he used to command in Vietnam. Francis was a decent medic, and he could keep their vehicles running, when they were fortunate enough to have one. Louis was sort of a jack-of-all-trades, proficient at just about everything he needed to do. Zoey surprised even Bill with her ability to acquire food, as well as her marksmanship. And Bill was in charge, despite Francis' incessant bitching. With Bill's death, those roles had remained the same, but all of a sudden, Francs and Louis were asking for her opinion, deferring to her thoughts. Was it because Bill had taken a bit of a shine to her, they thought of her as his successor.

_That's a scary thought_, Zoey mused, laughing a little as she finished with the rabbit and got to her feet to continue on to the next trap. This was the first time she'd considered it consciously, but she knew in an instant it was true. She had become responsible for them, despite there never having been any question put forward as to who should take over. But if she accepted that mantle, then she had a decision to make. She'd already started making decisions for the group two days before when she'd refused Ellis' offer to join his group of survivors. It had been a tempting offer at the time, and truth be told, Zoey had wondered frequently since then if she'd made the right choice, but it had been too soon after Bill's death, and trusting new people had seemed like a foreign concept to her after the rending of their tight-knit group. But Francis and Louis had accepted her word without comment, so maybe they really did see her as their leader.

Francis had reset Louis' knee as best he could, and swelling seemed to be going down, as far as they could tell. Zoey didn't want to say it, but she suspected Louis would never walk the same again. Francis had confided in her the night before, and expressed the same concern. He simply wasn't experienced enough. Nevertheless, Louis was upbeat, and eager, it seemed, to continue their journey to the Florida Keys just as soon as he was able. Zoey hadn't questioned the wisdom of Bill's plan before, but now it had to be _her_ plan, and that put a lot more pressure on the matter.

Zoey pushed those thoughts from her mind as she heard a rustling in the leaves, and her gaze shot in that direction. A lone zombie was lurching its way towards her through the woods. This surprised her more than frightened her. She was well away from any urban area, having left the town of Rayford behind almost two hours before and entering the dense woods to the north. True, she'd spent more time than really necessary out here, the greenery offering a peace so difficult to come by in the city, but she'd been quiet, and kept her 'zombie footprint' to a bare minimum.

Of course, she thought, she could sit there and wonder how the zombie had found her, or she could deal with the problem. She was fortunate; the zombie's left ankle was broken almost completely in half, which slowed it and made it noisier. With the ground so soft and visibility through the trees so limited, she might not have heard it otherwise until it was too late. She carried a machete for just this purpose. She ran up to the zombie, drew the machete from its sheathe on her belt and, just as it was reaching out to her, she cut its head off in one stroke.

Panting slightly from her rapid approach, Zoey nonetheless felt flushed, pleased that yet another one of the creatures was dead. Okay, fine. Maybe she was putting way more effort into everything she did to mask her grief at Bill's death, but damn if it didn't translate into some serious ass kicking when it came to zombies. Zoey wiped the blood off on the zombie's shirt and sheathed the machete again. The wind rushed through the trees with a low howl, making the leaves move.

Zoey froze halfway through standing up. Her heart was racing, and she felt a pounding in her temples that came with extreme stress. She looked around.

_Oh God._

There had to be fifty of them, if not more. They were all over the place, moving in all directions. It constantly amazed her the myriad appearances and outfits possessed by the undead. They looked like they just stepped out of their daily lives, and then spent a month in the wilderness. She supposed that that was in fact exactly what had happened. Couple that with the fact that the bodies within the clothes were slowly decomposing, their skin mottled and grey and brown, and it was a wonder any of them had anything more than rags on them. It was by miracle alone that only one had noticed her. No, that wasn't quite true. The howl of the wind was in fact the collective voices of five or six of them, all different shapes and sizes, all looking at her like a dinner menu. There was still a chance though. If she kept quiet and took out the ones who'd noticed her quickly enough, she could avoid waking the horde and maybe make it back to town without much of a fight.

She turned back towards town and walked as quickly as she dared, trying her best not to make a sound. The zombies who'd already noticed her followed dutifully, but she kept an eye on them. The closest only just reached her when the repeated her earlier actions and beheaded it with her machete. She didn't sheathe it though; it still had work to do.

It was going well until she heard a dreaded giggling sound. _Jockey!_ She thought instantly. Her breath quickened to a panicky rate as she looked around for it. You could barely get one of those hunchbacked bastards off you with people helping you. She couldn't afford to let one get her when she was alone. She leapt over a large root and nearly slammed into the tree trunk, hiding behind it. She pulled her hunting rifle off her back and wrapped the sling around her arm so she could lift it with one hand, keeping her machete in the other. She lamented leaving his assault rifle on the bridge, but she'd been planning on hunting, not fighting.

The sound of the Jockey grew closer, but she still couldn't pin down where the source was. The noise was starting to alert the other zombies that something was happening. That noise made their other senses perk up. The closest ones were starting to pick up her scent. They sniffed, and their teeth started clicking together, a sound that was just insidious in how innocuous it should have been, yet it was absolutely terrifying. The sound that signified the zombies were hunting you. Then she saw it, literally bouncing on the ground between the trees and over the thick mossy ground to get to her. Somehow, it knew exactly where she was. Its tiny legs and spherical grey body seemed so…distorted, especially with its disproportionally buff arms. All that paled in frightening comparison when it got on you. Those arms would tear at your head, scratching, clawing, and removing flesh from bone as easily as a paring knife might. More than one zombie she'd seen had the telltale signs of a Jockey attack: exposed skull, flaps of scalp hanging off, face torn to pieces. It was an ugly way to go.

It was too fast, she knew she couldn't get it with her machete; she'd tried and failed before. Hating herself and preparing to run, Zoey lifted her rifle and aimed at the Jockey. There were dozens of zombies in the woods, she knew, but nevertheless, she squeezed the trigger three times, pausing just long enough to readjust her aim. On the third pull, the rifle had barely come back down from the recoil when Zoey shot forward off her back foot, breaking into a sprint almost instantly. Now the hunters knew, dinner was served.

The Jockey lurched back from the shots, but in her haste, Zoey's aim had been less than stellar. It lost most of the movement in its left arm, but its legs still worked, and nothing had hit its head. So after recovering from the hits, it began running at her with renewed vigor. Zoey didn't see this, busy as she was with a pair of zombies who'd come from behind a tree.

It leapt up, ricocheted off a tree, then jumped at her. It would have landed had she not dodged to the side at the last second, having caught it in her peripheral vision as she finished with the second zombie. The Jockey sailed on and landed a few meters in front of her, shocked and dazed that it wasn't on her head. Zoey didn't pause to consider her good fortune, she simply took off in another direction.

There was no guidance now, now plan. Zoey was simply running as fast and as far as she could. She stumbled over a zombie with no legs, crawling through the dirt to get to her. She cried out in pain as its outstretched arms clutched at her, and one hand scraped her ankle, leaving deep cuts. She smashed the butt of her rifle into its head as she collapsed to one knee.

Biting a whimper to the back of her throat, she used her rifle as a support to stand herself back on her feet. She took off forward again. Around her, _every_ zombie was now after her; at least fifty, probably more. She made it less than 10 paces when she skidded to a stop. There were too many in front of her to go forward. Behind her was no better. She darted to the side, but stopped again as she saw even more. She was surrounded.

Forgetting escape entirely, Zoey levelled her rifle and fired at the nearest zombie. The powerful hunting rifle put it down with a single round to the chest. She swept left and fired again. An elderly man's head exploded. To the right. A child hit the ground, minus most of its neck. She'd long since learned to stop seeing them as human beings. Human was the last thing they were now. They were less than animals. They were more akin to insects than anything, running on instinct alone. They just looked like humans. She reloaded and fired again. And again. Every shot spelled death for one of the infected. But another one always came up to take its place. It seemed like it would never end.

Zoey loaded her last magazine into her hunting rifle. _Make this one count_, she heard in her father's voice. Or was it Bill's? She whirled around and sighted in on a sound she knew too well. The Jockey had come back. This time she aimed true. The rifle kicked back into her shoulder, and a single round flew directly into her target's head. Jockey down. Her grim, triumphant smirk turned into a grimace of pain before it could fully form though, as one of the infected threw itself onto her back and bit down on her shoulder. She gasped in pain and dropped her rifle. The zombie bit down harder, through her sweater and into the meat of her shoulder. Its weight started to drive her down.

Fighting through the pain, Zoey reached her left hand down to her waist and grasped her pistol. She lifted it to where she thought the zombies head was and fired. She didn't see the results either, but after three shots, the pressure on her shoulder disappeared, and the weight slid off her back and onto the dirt with a wet splat. Zoey touched her shoulder. Her hand came away sticky with necrotic saliva, but fortunately, not much blood. Lucky break, she supposed, that it hadn't gone too deep.

Not that it mattered; she was still surrounded. She pulled her second pistol from her hip and fired akimbo into the rapidly advancing horde. Now that she took a second look, maybe they were starting to thin. There somehow _seemed_ to be less of them anyway. Maybe there was a chance.

Something heavy and powerful slammed into her, sending her flying. The ground came up hard, driving the air from her lungs. One pistol clattered away. Her palms stung as gravel and wood chewed at them. Zoey looked around wildly for whatever had hit her. A few meters away, a Hunter was crouched on the ground, looking over its shoulder at her. It growled, and Zoey shuddered involuntarily.

She moved forward and clambered to her feet. She raised her one remaining gun, steadying it with her other hand. But it leapt away. She cursed, but didn't dwell on it, simply shifting her sights to the next zombie in line. Once again, her father's training kicked in, and she placed tight groups into each target. They were still running at her, but the uneven ground slowed their progress, and she kept a safety ring around her.

The gun clicked empty, and she reloaded smoothly, and kept firing. But she was running low on ammunition, and there were at least thirty more that she could see. She put a bullet into the head of a fairly average-looking woman, then put down four more zombies besides. She checked over her shoulder, and saw the way was relatively clear. She still had her machete, and could conceivably fight her way out. Zoey turned to make a run for it, but stopped when she heard a growl behind her. She whirled around.

The Hunter was back. It crawled sideways on the ground, playing with her. Zoey took careful aim and fired. The Hunter jerked around. Not enough to stop the bullets from hitting it, but enough to prevent them from hitting anything vital. She kept firing, and was now getting frustrated that the damn thing wouldn't sit still. Then her pistol clicked empty. She calmly reached for another magazine and found…nothing.

The Hunter leapt, screaming. Zoey, her face carrying a look of helplessness, let her outstretched hand fall, and the empty pistol clattered off a log and into the dirt. She closed her eyes just before it struck.

Nothing. Or, more correctly, _almost_ nothing. Zoey heard nothing more than a whiz and a splat. She opened her eyes, and they flew wider with shock. The Hunter was on the ground in front of her, dead. Fluid that was dark red and black was leaking into the dirt from a single, tiny hole in its head. Someone had shot it! Zoey looked around wildly for her savior, and her mouth fell open in shock once again.

Running towards her through the trees was a soldier. Camouflaged from head to toe, she could hardly see his face through his sunglasses, as well as some sort of covering. He looked like a big, brownish-green animal. Beside him, what looked like a wolf was running. It quickly outpaced him-and ran straight at her. Unable to form any other coherent thought, Zoey flinched, prepared to feel teeth digging into her.

"Get down!" the man shouted. Zoey got down.

****Finally, they meet. Sort of. Anyway, sorry if this seemed a little flat, there really wasn't much use for excessive dialogue from the two characters when both were alone. Now that they've met up, there will be much more talking. Thanks for reading, and please review. **


	4. Convergence

****So, here's Chapter 4. This took me a while to write, what with work and life and all. Enjoy****

Aubrey kept his rifle trained as he vaulted over the fallen tree. He fired. A trio of zombies dropped as his feet hit the ground, and he kept running. Ahead of him, the girl obediently dropped to the ground. He put a bullet into the head of the zombie behind her.

"Rafe, take!" he ordered. The dog shot forward like a big furry bullet and slammed into the Smoker they'd seen earlier. He tore into its neck, snarling a wet, guttural animal noise from the back of his throat. Zoey looked up at the noise and gasped as she saw him tear into the creature. Then she heard what sounded like bursts of compressed air, and zombies began dropping around her.

A hand fell on her shoulder and pulled her around so he was facing him. She still couldn't see his face through the covering, or through the sunglasses, but his voice boomed commandingly, "On your feet kid! Now!" He hauled her up, but she shook him off. She quickly recovered her composure after her brush with death.

"I'm fine! Don't call me kid!" she gasped.

"Then let's go!" he said. "Rafe, let's move!" Rafe obediently got off the Smoker and followed. Aubrey ran forward, then looked back, and was surprised to see the girl was keeping up with him. Maybe he could trust her to continue to do so. He led her away from the kill zone at a pace slow enough that she could be safe. The zombies were growing thinner as they escaped the area, and lost them in the trees, but they were making too much noise for a clean getaway. He shot two more who were closest, then pulled an object off his belt.

"What's that?" Zoey asked instantly. Again, Aubrey was surprised by her awareness. He'd have thought she'd be almost catatonic with fear.

Aubrey didn't slow down, but he explained over his shoulder, "Party favor. We'll never get out of here if we're the most interesting thing out here." He pressed a button on one end of the device, a six inch long white tube. He handed it off to Rafe. He took it in his mouth and took off without further instruction. It sounded like a crowd. "Let's move."

"Will he be okay?" she asked concernedly. Aubrey laughed.

"No Zeke alive can catch him." he said confidently. "Stay tight."

He led her through the trees, picking a careful path despite his speed. He spotted another zombie in their path, snapped his rifle up, fired, and just as quickly lowered it to his running position again, all in less than a second. He listened as the party favor was carried away, and deliberately moved in the opposite direction. Zoey kept her eyes on his feet, following his path exactly. Whoever he was, she had to trust him and his apparent experience.

"Can you fight?" he asked her suddenly, still running.

"What?"

He glanced back, then knelt to the ground. "Keep running. Can you fight?" He fired two shots into a pursuing Hunter, then ran after her.

"Yes." she panted. He snorted, cut around a wide tree and went in a new direction. Zoey followed, startled at the change.

"Do you know where you're going?" she demanded.

"Yes." he said shortly.

They ran in silence for nearly a minute. He raised his rifle every few seconds to kill a stray zombie in their path, but most were after the noise in the distance. Only those who actually saw the two humans were attracted. Zoey marveled at the kind of preparedness of the unknown man.

"Alright Rafe, come on back." Aubrey touched a hand to his ear to activate his radio link to Rafe. There was no response, but there didn't have to be. He knew that Rafe had dropped the party favor, and was now speeding his way back as quickly as possible. He looked back at the path they'd taken. Seeing nothing, he slowed, then stopped. He looked in all directions. His eyes flicked from one spot to another, holding for a few seconds on every spot, looking for movement in his peripheral vision.

Nothing. Except for one spot. Running through the underbrush, Rafe rushed up to Aubrey, his tongue hanging out. His tail began wagging when he came in sight, and he came up to Aubrey for praise. He scratched Rafe's neck and head vigorously, and looked around for more threats.

"Nice work buddy. Now, are you ready for one more?" Rafe's mouth opened wider in that dog-smile. "Good boy. Take this." Aubrey put another device into his mouth. Rafe jerked his head and worked his jaw a bit to position it more comfortably. Aubrey pointed away, to the right of where he'd come from. "Go that way. Run." Rafe ran off. Aubrey stood and looked at Zoey, who'd watched the whole thing curiously. He pointed in the opposite direction. "Last run. You good?"

Zoey nodded. "Where to?"

He shrugged. "Until I'm confident we're safe."

Aubrey took off again, Zoey close behind. They ran until the trees started to thin. When they came to a clearing, Aubrey stopped suddenly, and Zoey nearly ran into him. She stumbled and he twisted to grab her wrist before she fell down, and pulled her back up. She recoiled instinctively though, and backed away as soon as she regained her footing. She began breathing faster and faster, as everything that had just happened-the fact that she'd been about to die, and had succumbed to that fact-caught up with her. And underneath that, the knowledge of how dangerous she was. She saw Aubrey quirk his head to the side, confused at her reaction.

"I'm not going to hurt-" he started, taking a step forward. She took a reciprocal step back.

"Stay back!" she nearly shouted. She was starting to hyperventilate, and struggled to calm herself down. _Not another one_.

Aubrey's eyes passed over her, and he instantly appraised her with a tactical eye. She wore a ripped pink hoodie, faded blue jeans, and her mid-length brown hair was up in a ponytail, all of which instantly said _college kid_ to him. But she was out here alone, which suggested that she was stronger than she looked. Now it looked like she was panicking, almost afraid of him. Or she was losing it. He saw she had a number of scratches. The early stages of infection could sometimes resemble a panic attack. His hand drifted almost casually to his sidearm.

"Ma'am, are you okay?" he asked calmly. "You've got some injuries there. Have you ever been bitten before?"

Zoey shook her head. "No…I mean-yes. No, I'm not infected, I'm immune, but-stay back!" she snapped again, holding out a hand to stop him as he shifted forward slightly.

He held his empty hands in the air and spoke in the soothing yet commanding voice he'd been taught. "Ma'am, listen to me. I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Jack, okay? Jack Aubrey." He reached up slowly and pulled his shemagh down around his neck, then pulled his sunglasses off and very deliberately tucked them into his collar. He tried to look non-threatening. He was pretty sure he looked like a sociopath. "Can you tell me your name?"

"No! I don't want to infect you!"

Aubrey flashed a grin that Zoey thought was rather casual for a man in danger. "Ma'am, I'm a United States Navy SEAL. If you turned, I'm pretty sure I could handle you. But you're not going to turn, are you?" Always get the mark involved in the conversation. Make them think. Negotiation 101. He added amiably, "Because you're immune, remember?"

Zoey bristled at the condescending tone. "That doesn't matter."

"What do you mean?"

"I…I don't know." she sighed distressingly. "But people get infected around me. Around us. We were at an Army evacuation site a couple weeks ago. They told us we were-" She stopped as he chuckled, completely unexpectedly.

"We are aware of the carrier phenomena ma'am." he said reassuringly. "I've been vaccinated."

Zoey frowned. "Aware…phenomena? What are you talking about, vaccinated? There's a vaccine?"

"Only for the airborne strains. It doesn't matter, since I'm already immune to the contact strains."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Zoey screwed her eyes shut for a moment and held up her own hand to stop him. "You're saying a lot of things that are going way over my head. Slow down."

Aubrey grinned wryly. "Yeah, I get it. I barely understand it myself. I can explain it better, but maybe we should wait until we're a little safer, know what I mean?" He looked around, then down as Rafe returned again, looking just as happy as before. Aubrey knelt to scratch his neck again. "This is Rafe, by the way. He's the one that saved your ass from the Sniper."

"Sniper?" He grinned again.

"Sorry. Soldier-talk. We have official names for them. I'm sure you've come up with your own. What do you call it?"

"Smoker." she said, as though it were obvious.

"Apt." he admitted. "I expect most of your names make as much, if not more sense than ours. Now, do you have a camp nearby? You said 'we', so I assume you're not alone?"

Zoey nodded. She was quickly recovering her composure again, with Aubrey's reassurances that she wouldn't infect him. Now she was starting to consider him as a potential ally, rather than a potential victim. "There's three-I mean, two others besides me. But I don't…" Suddenly, she realized how unsure she was about him. Who the hell was this guy anyway? Why should she trust him? She knew Francis sure wouldn't. Bill probably wouldn't either. He seemed friendly now, but that could be a farce. He could be scouting her out, seeing how many friends she had, how easy they'd be to overcome, leaving him alone with the pretty girl for as long as he wanted. She knew for a fact she couldn't fight him off. But if he really was military…

As if he was reading her mind, Aubrey shifted his weapon so it hung behind him on its sling and held out a gloved hand. He repeated himself, "My name's Jack. I'm a US Navy SEAL okay? I'm going to help you, not hurt you."

She hesitated, but she looked into his eyes, and what she saw inexplicably comforted her. There was a solemnity there that both fit and contrasted his joking. She took his hand. "I'm Zoey. With a Y. Our…camp, is in the city. We're holed up on the raised bridge across the river. One of my guys is wounded pretty bad. I don't suppose you're a medic?" she asked wryly.

"I've got the same field medic certification as anyone in my unit, but I'm nothing special. Just a shooter" he replied. He looked around. "Unless you've got another reason to be out here, I'll escort you to your camp. Those devices I used won't keep them occupied forever."

"Alright." she nodded, hoping the reluctance she still felt didn't show in her voice. If it did, he didn't react.

"Town's that way." he pointed. Zoey followed him once again, but at a more relaxed pace this time. Slightly. He took off at what he considered a light jog, but it was much faster than Zoey's comfortable pace. She sure as hell wasn't going to voice that though, and let him see her as weak. They walked in silence for almost an hour, before Zoey's curiosity got the best of her.

"How long have you been out here?"

"Since the beginning." he said simply.

Zoey rolled her eyes. "That was over four months ago. You've been alone the whole time?"

Aubrey exhaled audibly without answering. Zoey wondered if she'd touched a nerve. Finally he said cryptically, "There were others. But it's been me and Rafe for the last three months."

"I'm sorry." she said sincerely.

"Me too."

Zoey couldn't think of what to say after that, so they fell into another silence that was decidedly more awkward. So she simply watched him. He moved fluidly and silently, in perfect sync with Rafe. He was a beautiful animal, she thought; she'd always loved dogs. If her dorm had allowed it, she would have had one in college. But she couldn't imagine having only a dog for a companion for almost the entire time. She couldn't even begin to imaging what his mind was like. Was he suffering from some sort of cabin fever? He could conceivably be insane, or-despite his _allegedly_ honorable military background-planning on taking her back to his camp for a little 'one-on-one'. And she had no evidence whatsoever that he was even telling the truth at all. He could simply be a scout for a larger group of survivors. She'd heard rumors of roving bands of men with female salves in tow. Men could quickly lose their morality, if left alone long enough, or so Bill had told her.

Yet for some reason, she felt she could trust him. She couldn't explain it. She simply felt…safe. And from what she'd seen, he was easily worth four or five others when it came to fighting the infected. When she examined him, she noticed that he wasn't strictly speaking dressed in camouflage, like she'd thought. He had some sort of netting made up into a suit-she thought it was called a gorilla suit, or ghillie suit, or something like that-that covered his clothes, that was covered in sticks and strips of green and brown canvas. Couple that with his myriad weapons, and the shemagh and shades covering almost every square inch of his face, and he was almost terrifying. When she'd briefly seen his face though, she'd felt a flash of…something. Attraction?

She shook those thoughts off; she still didn't know if she trusted him, despite his jokes and friendliness. She decided to ask another question, one that had been sitting in the back of her mind.

"You said 'we' are aware of…carriers." she asked. "Who's 'we'?"

Aubrey glanced back at her momentarily. "The professionals. The military, the government. It may have looked like chaos from your point of view, but it was organized chaos, at least at the federal level."

"Really?" Zoey said, surprised. "Have you seen some of the crap on safe house walls? Everybody hates them."

He scoffed. "No, they hate the Civil Emergency and Defense Agency." he said, saying the full name mockingly. Then he shook his head. "While CEDA was fucking the dog in the field, the CDC was doing their damn jobs, figuring out what the hell we were dealing with. It was probably pretty hard to see deep in enemy territory, but when CEDA was relieved of evacuation duty three weeks in, and the Department of Homeland Security took over along with FEMA, things started rolling along a lot better."

"Then there are more survivors?" Zoey asked hopefully.

Aubrey sighed. "I don't know. Things were going well, but Zeke is an exponential problem. Every man we lose is one they gain. When I said that they had their heads out of their asses, I didn't say it worked. The government was overwhelmed. I have no idea if anyone else is left."

"That's not exactly encourag-oh." Zoey's voice fell into silence. The trees had been thinning for a while, but she hadn't expected this.

Apparently, he'd led her directly into town through some sort of nature park that connected the outlying woods to the city center. They were now at the very edge of that park, just in the trees looking at an expansive green field. There were bike paths, a few trees on low, sloping hills, and a broad sidewalk around the outer border separating the dog park from the street.

The entire field was full of zombies. At least a hundred of them, wandering around in a near comatose state. The way they were grouped loosely, it looked like they had been affected by the sounds of the other survivors' battle, but when they didn't see anything, and the noise went away, they went dark again, but had yet to spread out naturally.

"That's not good." Zoey breathed quietly. Aubrey looked at her and scowled at the noise, however slight. He waved very deliberately to bring her back deeper into the trees, then he led her around the border of the woods until they reached a wrought-iron fence separating the trees suddenly from the sidewalk. He slipped fluidly over it, then watched the street while she vaulted over to join him. They were in the late afternoon shade under the trees, so they were difficult to see, and there were only a few zombies on the road anyway.

"Stay behind me." he ordered.

"I can fight." Zoey protested. "I'll keep an eye out for Specials. Give me your rifle."

He snorted and choked down a full out laugh. "This is an M110 Designated Marksman's Rifle. It fires a 7.62 millimeter heavy-grain full metal jacket round at anywhere between 3000 and 4500 feet per second. I hand make each bullet it fires, and if one is to be fired, I would like it to hit its target."

Zoey bristled. "I'm a damn good shot pal. There's a reason my people sent _me_ out hunting."

"Because you can tie a snare?" he said pointedly, indicating the rabbit on her waist.

"I _dropped_ my hunting rifle." she said, her temper flaring.

"Another reason I don't want you holding mine."

_Asshole_, Zoey thought. This guy thought he was the only guy in the universe who had a clue, just because he'd been doing it alone, while she'd had help. Maybe being alone, rather than turning him into a man who would succumb to baser instincts, had simply taken away any ounce of tact or politeness he possessed.

Aubrey released the foregrip of his rifle and pointed across the street. "We'll head for that apartment building there. On the other side is an alley. With the position of the sun, we can stay in the shadows and hopefully avoid detection. The bridge is…" he checked the map on his wrist. "Five blocks away. We can make that in an hour, less if we're forced to run."

"What do you mean _if_ we're forced to run?" Zoey hissed, a little more harshly.

"What do _you_ mean? You do a lot of running?" he asked curiously.

"We get hit by a horde like every five minutes, not even counting Specials. Don't you?"

He shrugged. "Not really no. Zeke can't get you if he doesn't know you're there. Just stay quiet, and you won't have hordes to deal with."

"Like we're _trying_ to make noise."

"Doesn't sound like you're trying very hard _not_ to."

_Asshole_, she thought again. But she followed him anyway. He dashed across the street, then waved for her to follow. Half a second after she skidded to a stop on the wall, he was already peering around the corner, rifle barrel first, to examine the street leading to the alley.

"Light contact." he reported. "Should be fine, as long as we're quiet. It's 30 yards to the alley entrance. Think you can do that?"

"Look-" she started heatedly. Aubrey stopped her with a raised hand.

"Your ankle." he said pointedly. She looked down. She realized she was bleeding. She'd probably been limping and hadn't even noticed, she'd been doing it so often lately.

"Yeah, I can make it. This is nothing." she assured him He nodded.

Aubrey led her down the sidewalk and into the alley. The population there was sparse, and were quickly taken care of with a few well-placed shots. Besides the sounds of careful footsteps, and the hissing bursts of the gunshots, they were completely silent.

They reached a point where the narrow space between buildings opened up somewhat to a loading area for trucks, before narrowing again to continue. A single light was flickering over one of the doorways. Zoey heard a cough, and immediately crouched down. Aubrey did so as well. "Smoker." she whispered. He nodded, and waved Rafe over to him. He placed a hand on the dog's shoulder.

"Rafe, rush forward. Distract and destroy. Go."

Rafe shot forward like lightning. The Smoker just around the corner, who'd just started to realize they were there, started, and shot its tongue after the dog. It missed. In one single motion, Aubrey came around the corner and drew his katana off his back. It swung open, and he neatly decapitated the Smoker. A dormant zombie nearby jerked its head up at the noise. Aubrey drew his suppressed Sig Sauer with his left hand and shot it in the head.

"Let's move." he ordered quietly. They rushed forward once again, and made it unmolested to the end of the alley. It was blocked by a cube van, but through a crack of fading light, Zoey could see one of the tall concrete barriers that had blocked in the intersection in front of the bridge.

Zoey pointed. "That's where we are. On that bridge."

"What was the local population last time you passed through here?"

"As of this morning, zero. We take out anything that wanders into the area, so it can't attract others." she said. Aubrey gave her a look that might have approached approval.

"Smart."

"We had a good guy teaching us." she said, her voice trailing off for a moment. She wouldn't have survived this long without Bill, without his knowledge of how to fight, how to survive. How they would last without him, once they hit the road again…Zoey had no idea.

Aubrey didn't seem to notice the change in tone. He crouched down in front of the van and cupped his hands. She understood, and stepped into them. She caught the edge of the top of the van as he lifted her, and she clambered up to stand atop the dirty white metal.

On the bridge, Francis was standing guard on the upper level pedestrian deck overlooking the roadway, used by maintenance personnel. Their 'camp' was on the lower, more spacious level, with the control panel and the ladders they'd blocked off. He casually paced the comfortably wide walkway, shotgun in hand, keeping an eye on the ground, and trying to resist the urge to kill Louis. He'd insisted on spending almost 15 minutes grunting his way up the ladder, and now, the man just wouldn't stop…talking! Despite his injuries-no. If anything, the injuries made him even _more_ talkative.

"You know one thing I _don't_ miss about civilization?" he asked, remarkably chipper for a man who still couldn't walk without a heavy limp and a huge amount of pain. "I.T. I will never have to tell another human being to reboot their computer!"

"You hate it…and yet you're still talking about it." Francis grumbled.

"Oh, I didn't hate it." Louis assured him. "I just got frustrated with people who didn't know what they were doing with computers. You know, old ladies, soccer moms. People like that. I still miss computers."

"Maybe I can find you one." _Shut you up for a few hours_, he added silently.

"Of course," Louis reasoned. "It's not all bad. I mean, as long as I've got a Molotov, I can still make a firewall." He looked up at Francis expectantly. Francis looked nonplussed. "Get it? Firewall?"

Francis finally got it. He shook his head and turned back to the road. "Jesus Christ…" Louis chuckled, quite pleased with himself. Then he frown, something catching his eye across the road.

"Francis…"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it already. Hi-fucking-larious." Francis waved him off dismissively.

Louis pointed. "No, look!"

On the left side of the street, beyond the concrete wall, there was a white cube van. On top of the cube van, a figure was getting to its feet. Francis nearly dropped his shotgun, but managed to place it relatively gently on the deck, and grabbed the rifle Zoey had left and aimed it at the figure. His finger tightened on the trigger just as it came into focus-

"Don't shoot!" Louis cried. "It's Zoey!"

"Zoey…" Francis muttered. Then he looked closer. It was. He could see her waving through the scope now. She looked beat up, and her rifle was missing. He suddenly glanced down. "Damn. She's gonna be pissed." Zoey didn't like him touching her rifle.

"At least she's safe." Louis said.

"Is that a…dog?" Francis said, continuing to look. It looked like a fairly large dog had just jumped up from the alley behind the van onto the roof. And she helped it up, indicating that she knew the dog.

"What's she doing with a dog? What kind?" Louis inquired.

"Looks like some kind of police dog. It's got a dog vest-lookin' thing on." Francis explained, then he looked at Louis momentarily. "How the fuck would I know what she's doing with a dog?"

"I'm just saying. Wait. What's that now?" Louis pointed again.

Francis looked through the scope again, and watched as someone else climbed up to join Zoey and the dog. Whoever he was, he looked prepared. Camo duds, heavy weapons, and the attack dog was probably his. If Zoey had managed to befriend some survivalist zombie hunter who could kick some serious ass, then Francis was all for it. But the question remained,

"Who the fuck is that guy?"

****Zoey and Aubrey have finally met, and have teamed up (at least for the moment). Took me longer than expected to write; I've been very busy with work, and I've been putting a lot of time into my Mass Effect fiction (keep an eye out), which is where I'll be dedicating most of my efforts for the time being. So I don't know when the next chapter will be out, but I wanted to finish and post the big meeting before doing anything else. I'm not abandoning this work, but I may end up slowing down significantly, at least until I'm on another zombie kick. Then, who knows. Anyway, thanks for reading, and keep an eye out for updates, and a new Mass Effect work in the near future, if you're interested.****


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